


Chevalier

by Flyting



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 18th Century, Blood and Violence, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misuse of Christianity, Prompt Fic, Rescue Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyting/pseuds/Flyting
Summary: The part Crowley couldn’t bear, the very worst part, was that it was all his fault.And not in that stupid self-flagellating ‘oh wah this random series of events is all my fault’ way. In the very literal ‘I made a horrible mistake and now someone I care about is suffering because of what I very directly and specifically did’ way.But to see it, to understand how badly he had fucked up, you had to start at the beginning.Fill for the prompt:  'hedonists with no foresight decide to torture an angel for funsies'-- but in their case, their comeuppance isn't blind justice enacted by the universe, but very, very particular justice enacted by Crowley, who's come to get his angel back





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to de-anon because I like the way this turned out and also more people deserve to appreciate the amount of research I did on 18th century France for this fic. 
> 
> I read books for you, OP. _Books._

The part Crowley couldn’t bear, the very worst part, was that it was all his fault.  
  
And not in that stupid self-flagellating ‘oh wah this random series of events is all my fault’ way. In the very literal ‘I made a horrible mistake and now someone I care about is suffering because of what I very directly and specifically did’ way.   
  
But to see it, to understand how badly he had fucked up, you had to start at the beginning.

With his new line manager.

_France, 1719_

In a tavern in one of the seedier parts of Paris, three men in dark clothes are skulking in a corner.   
  
That isn’t unusual, this being one of those dim, smoky sorts of taverns whose stock in trade was men meeting to discuss evil deeds in dark corners. Nor did they attract attention, being merely one of four similar gangs, each with their own dark corner staked out. All of them are bent low over their mugs, hoods casting variously scarred, burned, and grizzled faces into shadow, except for when they paused to glare the other three groups as if to say, ‘this is our corner here, you just stay over there and mind your own business, or else… well, just or else’.   
  
Had any of the other denizens of the tavern bothered to look more closely at the group in question, they might have noticed that they were a fair sight stranger than the tavern’s usual clientele.   
  
No one did. This wasn’t the sort of tavern where you went around noticing people.   
  
“He’s late,” says one of the men, a fussy-looking, round fellow with very large eyes and dark hair slicked tight back against his head. He cocks his head towards the door, a curiously birdlike gesture.   
  
“Yeah,” growled another, tedium dripping from the word, “Usually is.” This man has pockmarked skin and brittle white hair that looked as if it not only had never seen a comb, but had yet to be made aware of the existence of combs   
  
“S’a bit rude though, isn’t it? I mean, yeah, sure, prince of hell and all that- gotta to keep the underlings waiting, keep everyone on their toes, but some of us might have had places to be,” the third man sniffs. “Not like it’s a Friday night or anything. Might’ve had plans.”  
  
In contrast to the other two, who had taken the guidelines of ‘black’ and ‘ominous’ to their basic conclusion and worn the sort of shabby dark tunic common among the criminals and thieves of Paris’ underbelly, the third is dressed in the fashionable _habit à la française_ \- the three piece suit and knee breeches which were de rigeur at court. His hair is powdered white in the bag wig style, the length of it tied in a black silk bag at the nape of his neck, and his brocade justacorps exquisitely cut and flared around the hips. It is, at least, in concession to the atmosphere of the tavern, all in black, save for the waistcoat, which is embroidered in spun gold thread.   
  
It was embroidered – were anyone in a position, or indeed in a tavern with good enough lighting, to take a really close look at the waistcoat – in an ornate pattern of gold serpents.   
  
The birdlike man pins him with an unblinking stare. His eyes are an inky black, all pupil, ringed with a thin band of gold. “There are no greater plans than those of hell, Crowley.”  
  
“No, yeah, of course.” Crowley slouches down in his chair, backpedaling, “great plans. Wonderful plans. I’m just saying, he could have at least sent a note.”   
  
He props one skinny, white-stockinged leg up on the table and does not entirely manage to suppress a huff.   
  
If the demon Asmodeus, Prince of Hell, and one of the seven lords of sin, had any sense of dramatic timing, he would have arrived right at that moment, in a swirl of cold wind through the open door that guttered half the candles in the room.  
  
Unfortunately, he didn’t, and instead kept them waiting and making awkward small-talk for another 36 minutes, according to the intricate silver watch in Crowley’s pocket. When he did walk in the door they missed it entirely, caught up in an argument about the relative merits of pocket watches versus sundials, an argument which Crowley somehow managed to be _losing._   
  
“Hastur, Andras, Crowley-“ he greets them perfunctorily, pulling up a chair, while the three scramble and sputter over each other to make the appropriate noises of respect.   
  
Hastur elbows him sharply in the ribs and Crowley jerks his leg off the table.   
  
The body Asmodeus inhabited was older but well-kept, still handsome, dressed like a tradesman with hair that was greying at the temples. Other than a certain blackness to the eyes, there is no sign of the infernal about him, which suggests that this body is ‘off the rack’, as it were, rather than bespoke.   
  
A human under possession.   
  
Asmodeus always prefered to take them alive and wriggling.  
  
Asmodeus had been sent there because of corporate reshuffling. In the very literal sense that Crowley’s previous line manager had had their organs reshuffled into several different time zones due to poor performance.  
  
Demons took ‘workplace review’ very seriously.   
  
“Recount the deeds,” he grunts, cutting short their obsequieties. “Let’s get the formalities over with. Andras?”   
  
Andras preens.   
  
“Right, of course, my lord,” the demon lets out something that coming from any less infernal mouth would sound like a nervous giggle before he masters himself. Crowley rolls his eyes behind his smoked-glass spectacles, catches Hastur's gaze and mouths the word _fanboy_ across the table.  
  
“I have corrupted a nun, my lord. As she ministered to the poor in the gutters she was overwhelmed with envy for the fine clothes and jewelry of the noblewomen who passed her by. She has stolen the alms for the poor and will use them instead secretly to buy herself a new dress. Within a month she will leave her order and we will have her.”  
  
“Hastur?”  
  
Hastur smiles. “I have taken not one, but two souls, my lord. A man and a woman, both married to others. I tempted them to catch each other’s eye in the marketplace. Even as we speak they are planning to kill the woman’s husband that they might run away together.”  
  
“Crowley?”  
  
“Get this,” Crowley leans in, a grin creeping across his face, “I have invented… a game.”  
  
They stare at him. Andras sniggers.  
  
“A game,” Asmodeus repeats, expressionless.   
  
“What you do is, you take this little ball,” he produces one from his pocket and spins it neatly on the table surface, “And spin it around in a big wheel, and – here’s the good bit- you bet money on where it’ll land.”   
  
He sits back, satisfied and beaming.  
  
“And that’s…it?” Hastur says, a condescending smile creeping across his face.  
  
“Well it was a bit tricky getting the wheel to spin right…” Crowley trails off at their uncomprehending looks and resigns himself to explaining as if he were talking to small children. “Look, right now at every salon in Paris, fuckoff rich noblemen with more money than God are losing their fortunes betting on where this little ball will land. Estates will be lost, families ruined, children thrown into poverty, husbands made to sleep on the couch, et cetera, et cetera.” He tosses the ball up in the air and catches it smartly. “I don’t even have to make them play it. They want to, because it’s fun. And the best part is, it’s one-hundred-percent pure chance. Not a lick of skill involved. Just luck. What’s more evil than a cruel, uncaring universe that doesn’t give a toss that you’ve just bet your last sous on red?”  
  
Before Andras can open his mouth to make a sarcastic comment, Asmodeus hums thoughtfully.  
  
“Interesting,” Asmodeus says. “Using their own weakness against them. I like it. Self-perpetuating sin. The two of you could learn from this,” he adds to Hastur and Andras.  
  
Crowley turns his smile on them, beaming like the teacher’s pet who’d gotten the only passing grade in class and is absolutely not above rubbing it in.  
  
“But what of your assignment? You were sent here to influence the prince regent. He’ll be of age soon. How have you fared?  
  
“Er…” the smile goes out like a light. Crowley scratches his ear absently. “About that. There’s been some… difficulties.”  
  
“What difficulties?”  
  
“Well it’s hard enough getting a moment alone with the kid, but then there was this angel hanging around, and you know how they are.” He affects a mocking sanctimonious tone that absolutely does not sound like any angels of his acquaintance, “ _begone from this servant of God, go on shoo, off with you foul serpent._  
  
“The angel has thwarted you?” Asmodeus asks, slowly. And looking back later, with the sharp clarity of hindsight, Crowley would realize that he really should have just stopped right there. He should have shut his fat mouth right there, and then all this might have been averted.  
  
Instead, he says, “Yeah, thwarted, that’s the word. He’s always undoing my evil dastardly plans. Right nuisance, that one.”  
  
A thoughtful smile creeps across the prince of hell’s stolen human face. “Well I’m sure there’s something we can do about that.”  
  
The problem, Crowley would only realize later, was that Asmodeus was not like his previous line managers, who were content to take the memos he sent them at face value and dish out accolades or punishments accordingly from behind their desks. The worst he faced there was a quarterly standard-issue whipping, which, depending on the demon holding the whip, could actually be kinda fun, in a spanky, _naughty boy_ sort of way.   
  
So he had sputtered and fussed and insisted that no really he had it all under control, and said not to worry and promised results he had no intention of delivering.  
  
And then he had left, confident that his lie had done the trick, and taken his private coach back to the Palais-Royal, where he had managed to install himself as an obscure but wealthy visiting Count, in time to catch the last hour of the party the duc de Richelieu was throwing. He had completely missed dinner and the dancing, but was at least in time to have a few drinks and play a round of cards with the guys.   
  
Unfortunately for Crowley, Asmodeus was a bit more what you might call hands on. One didn’t get to become a prince of hell by letting the down-line slip. So while Crowley was preoccupied by a game of piquet with the duc d’Orleans, Asmodeus went to work.

  
  
Aziraphale, of course, didn’t know about any of this yet.  
  
Having lost the coin toss for the palace spot to Crowley, he had set himself up in a modest little hôtel not far from Montparnasse, where he occupied his days doing good deeds for the unfortunate, giving alms to the poor, reading at the local café, paying the odd visit to the poor souls at Charenton, and, because he had lost the coin toss- occasionally fomenting social discord and rebellious discontent among the poor.   
  
He employed just a handful of servants, having always felt a bit uncomfortable with other people flapping about the place, and all in all presented himself as just another one of the _moyenne bourgeoisie_. An English businessman– because although he could generally pass as human, the angel failed utterly when it came to presenting himself as anything other than English – who had done very well for himself, perhaps.   
  
Which is why it was not suspicious for him to receive the odd visitor for dinner.   
  
Uncommon, certainly, but that had more to do with his lack of social charm than anything else – it’s said that to be truly Parisian one must learn to wear a mask of gaiety over their sorrows and one of boredom, or indifference over their inward joy. Well, Aziraphale had mastered the first part, but he had gotten hopelessly lost somewhere around the second, missed his ship, and ended up in the wrong country entirely. Fashionable Paris had decided there was no accounting for a man who got that giddy over crepes.   
  
All of which served him just fine.   
  
Aziraphale is seated in the library, picking contentedly at plate of fruit and brioche with jam, a book open on his desk, when the girl he employed as a housemaid brings him the card.  
  
The girl tuts. “Now you know mama’s going to shout at you if you get jam on your coat, sir,” she says reproachfully.   
  
Aziraphale matches her wry look with one that has had several millennia more practice. “My dear, I do think I can manage to eat my breakfast without making a mess. I’m not a child.”  
  
She hums, and her eyes flick down to his cream silk knee breeches.   
  
He follows her gaze, frowning, and sees for the first time that they’re smudged with sticky strawberry juice fingerprints.   
  
“Damn,” he sighs, closing his eyes.   
  
The housemaid’s mother, a formidable woman named Lucie, was employed as Aziraphale’s cook as well as his laundress. He was never going to hear the end of it.  
  
Worse, she’d probably never let him have strawberries again.  
  
The girl darts a glance over her shoulder, “I’ll bring hot water and lemon,” she says, sotto voce, a smile tugging at her mouth. “We’ll get it right out.”  
  
“Thank you,” he mouths.   
  
Over the past decade, four of Lucie’s young daughters had been employed by Aziraphel as housemaids at one point of another - Lucie having realized that there was not a house less threatening to a young girl’s virtue in all of Paris – and the current one was a short, plump-cheeked thing of 17 whose name he kept forgetting. She was, however, by far the sweetest.  
  
Marguerite, perhaps, or Madeleine.   
  
Something with an M-sound he was sure.   
  
Ah well, he’d get it eventually.   
  
Once she’s gone, Aziraphale sucks the strawberry juice from his fingers and examines the card she’d brought. The paper was expensive, very high quality with the weight that came with good craftsmanship.   
  
He sniffs it. Lightly scented with something floral. Gardenias, maybe? It was a bit of an obvious choice but he could appreciate the effort.   
  
Only one person ever sent him invitations to dinner.  
  
But to his surprise, the writing on the card was not Crowley’s familiar chickenscratch but another hand. Nor was it an invitation to dinner.

_\- Mme. and Mssr. de Montalia request the honor of calling on you this evening for dinner to discuss your recent work at Charenton. -_

Aziraphale frowns and examines the card back and front. Well he certainly had never heard of the de Montalias, but he was rather… not proud, per se, angels really oughtn’t be proud, but pleased… he was pleased by the good he had managed at Charenton Asylum.   
  
Well, Aziraphale supposed he could tolerate company for a few hours. It was for a cause close to his heart, after all.   
  
Setting aside his breakfast and taking out pen and paper, he scribbles a response to the card. When the young housemaid – Martine? Minette? oh, damn he'd remember it one day– returns he asks,  
  
“Is the boy who brought that card still downstairs?”  
  
“Philippe? Yes, sir, down by the fountain. He seems quite nice,” she says, sly, in a way that suggested that ‘quite nice’ really meant ‘devastatingly handsome’. Youthful infatuation bubbles through the air so strongly it nearly makes Aziraphale sneeze. “I gave him some cold tea and cheese while he waits.”  
  
“Well- well then I will take this, and you will take this down to him immediately.”  
  
The girl giggles – _giggles_ – and bounces on her toes a little when he exchanges the letter for the bowl of hot lemon water and towel.   
  
“Yes, sir, right away.”  
  
Aziraphale turns to his desk.   
  
Pauses.  
  
Turns back. “And- and you just- just behave yourself with him, young lady,” he adds, utterly failing to sound stern even to his own ears, “Or I shall tell your mother on you.”   
  
She smiles at him, all round cheeks and innocence. “Yes, sir.”  
  
He softens. “Alright, go on, shoo.”

Aziraphale does not normally bother with the big formal dining room, so much empty space and cold stone, preferring instead to enjoy his meals in his library or in one of the sunny little rooms overlooking the central courtyard. But there’s a certain level of hospitality expected when one has people over for dinner, and so he dutifully has the dining room dusted out and aired, and a few bottles of wine brought up - that mediocre burgundy, _not_ his Château Lafite - informs Lucie there would be guests for dinner and asks would she mind very terribly doing that dessert with the custard cream and the burnt sugar?  
  
That way at least if they're insufferable he has something to look forward to.  
  
The rest of the day he putters away in his library– the new Alexander Pope has finally arrived from England, along with a selection of other things he’d ordered and quite forgotten about. A new translation of the Psalms of David, and a promising looking work of fiction by a man named Defoe-  
  
His most pressing thought, when the de Montalias finally do arrive, is how at this rate he was going to have to expand his book collection into a second room.  
  
Later on he will hate himself for this. Will hurl bitter recriminations at his own stupid ignorance. He should have paid attention- should have thought-  
  
But the only force of evil he’s had contact with for the past several centuries has been Crowley.  
  
And somewhere over the years, the angel has forgotten how to be wary.   
  
He greets his guests in the main hall- a lovely room of cream stone and high ceilings. The required pleasantries are exchanged, and Mme. de Montalia raises a hand for him to kiss, which he does after a moment’s hesitation, if only to avoid seeming rude.  
  
She is tall for a woman, a bit taller than he is, and quite pretty he supposes, if one cares about those things. She has a mass of auburn hair that she has left unpowdered, but swept up in elaborate rolls around her face. It reminds him, in the back of his mind, of Crowley’s normal color, except not quite as lovely a shade of red.   
  
Aziraphale had views on this trend of hair powdering, most of them stemming from the fact that every time they met he had to fight the urge to dunk Crowley’s head in a bucket of water, and wash the whole mess off.   
  
Mssr. de Montalia is on the tall side as well, leaving Aziraphale feeling faintly dwarfed in their combined presence. This is nothing new, of course- it had been like that for the past millennia. The humans just kept getting taller. If he ever got to choose his vessel again he was going to go for a bit more leg- oh not much, he didn’t really mind being small, just enough that he isn’t constantly having to look up at people.   
  
“Lovely to meet you,” Mssr. de Montalia says. Twice the age of his wife, and well-dressed, he nonetheless has a rather rakish air about him. Like a highwayman who has retired with his ill-gotten gains and become a banker. “I’ve heard wonderful things from the Abbe Giroux about your charity work there.”   
  
“Yes, he says you’re quite the _angel_ of mercy,” she smiles, showing a hint of white teeth. 

Angels, you see, can sense demons. They wouldn't be much good if they couldn't. And while his senses are _twanging_ that there is something a bit unpleasant about the de Montalias, they are most assuredly human. The worst thing Aziraphale suspects in the moment is that they might be there to _borrow money_ from him.

Aziraphale glances from one of them to the other before forcing a little laugh. “Hardly that… She’s- she’s quite a bit taller, for one thing- I’m just- doing the good work, that is- …look, won’t you come in?”  
  
And so he ushers them into the dining room. There are formalities, rituals to the whole thing that have to be observed. No matter if they're there to borrow money or not, he doesn’t want to seem _uncivilized_. The table is set very nicely, the housemaid has scrubbed her cheeks and changed her apron, and they begin with a really lovely vegetable soup.  
  
Aziraphale’s opinion of de Montalia as a bit of a scoundrel softens considerably when the man presents him with a very nice bottle of Madeira, which he gives to his steward – Lucie’s husband Theo – to serve with dessert.

They talk about weather and mutual acquaintances. All those tedious social hurdles one has to pass through in polite society. Mssr. de Montalia tells a very funny story about getting thrown from a horse on the road to Rouen.  
  
It is not until the second course that propriety allows them to get to the heart of things.  
  
“-so the Abbe Giroux gave us your name. He said you were the darling responsible for all those wonderful improvements at Charenton,” Madame is explaining, over fish with wine sauce. “And that you were absolutely the one to speak to first if we wanted to involve ourselves.”  
  
“I don’t know about responsible. I’ve, well, I’ve put a few ideas in his ear, arranged a few things-“  
  
“You give yourself too little credit, the Abbe said you were positively indispensable!” She says, with too much charm, laying a hand on his sleeve.  
  
“Oh, well- well that is very kind of him,” Aziraphale flusters, and spares himself from having to say anything further by hiding behind a bite of fish.  
  
“I’ve been wanting to put a bit of money into good works, you see,“ de Montalia says. “Something cleansing for the soul. Heaven knows I could use it.” He shares a little smile with his wife.   
  
Aziraphale dabs his mouth with a napkin. “Hm, well, helping the unfortunate is a good place to start.”   
  
“The poor tormented things, I can’t imagine,” Madame says, in a tone that he will only later categorize as ‘laying it on a bit thick’. “Anything we can help with, anything at all.”  
  
In the here and now, he says, “You know, I did have an idea for a theater program-“   
  
That carries them through supper, the angel rarely having a willing ear for his one of his pet projects. Plans for refurbishing one of the larger rooms at the Asylum to be used as a stage. The good it might do some of the inmates to have a form of creative expression, and didn’t good theater just touch the very soul- he’s afraid he rather talks at length until dessert is being served, by which time he's nearly forgotten his earlier misgivings. They seemed eager to be of help, and- well, he had always had a soft spot for a well-meaning sinner.  
  
“Oh, you absolutely must try this,” he says to the de Montalias, near giddy. “Lucie always makes it with a bit of vanilla.”  
  
He closes his eyes for a moment as it’s placed in front of him, simply to savor his own joy, and the crisp sweet smell of burnt sugar. Oh, he did love crème anglaise.   
  
The little dish it was served in. The sharp little crack as you brought your spoon down to shatter the burnt sugar crust to get to the soft, warm custard inside.   
  
Aziraphale does not, as a rule, talk when there is a perfect little dish of crème anglaise in front of him, there being far more worthy occupations for his mouth. He savors the first bite, eyes closed with bliss.  
  
“But what about choosing the plays themselves?” de Montalia prompts, interrupting his moment of bliss. “Surely not everything is a fit subject..?”  
  
Aziraphale swallows a mouthful of wine. “Well I suppose you’re right, probably not.” One wouldn’t want someone who actually had killed their father playing in Hamlet, after all. “But the Abbe and the directors could choose worthy scripts, I’m sure.”  
  
He tucks back into his crème anglaise.   
  
A sudden wave of dizziness washes over him. In its wake the edges of his vision are shadowed.  
  
He gives his head a little shake, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose.  
  
Madam’s voice registers, distantly, sweet like honey layered over something rotten. “Oh, ou don’t look well, are you sure you’re quite alright?”   
  
“Yes, I’m-“ his tongue feels thick in his mouth. Somewhere there is a clatter as his spoon falls to the floor. “I’m fine, I’ll just-“  
  
It's suddenly quite warm. Aziraphale stands, abruptly certain that he is going to be sick. The room shifts drunkenly, simultaneously too big and too small. Drunkenly?  
  
Drunk? Had he… surely he hadn’t that much to drink?  
  
And his eyes- hard to keep open. 

Did- did he need to… in the bed, to go- lie down?  
  
But no, there was something he had to do first, it was-  
Go be sick, that was it-

Tricky without opening your eyes, but if… opened his eyes, if he did that, the room would spin and-   
  
Someone grabs hold of his elbow and he tries to turn, only for the floor to slide away, out from under his feet and away, and he stumbles, falls back against a wall.  
  
“Dear, you must let us help you.” Sweet like honey, like burnt sugar- no, not like that at all.  
  
Something was wrong.  
  
This wasn’t- something was wrong, he needed to sober up, but he wasn’t- this wasn’t that, it was another thing- a bad thing, he was-  
  
_Concentrate!_  
  
There is a dark shape in front of him – he could fix it, he just needed to - but it is the little shimmer of red at the edge of his vision which catches his unfocused gaze. Red, in a glass.  
  
Not blood, it was- it was the other thing, not drunk-  
  
The Madeira.  
  
“Oh, no,” Aziraphale moans before unconsciousness closes over him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I've been dealing with some things re: hating everything I write and other general self-flagellating nonsense. Finally decided that done is better than perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: death, mentions of corpses, blood, light torture, misuse of Christianity.

The fashion at court was arise late in the afternoon.

This was owing to the fact that it was also fashionable to stay up until the early hours getting sloshed and playing cards- and so it is well past noon when Crowley drags himself from the comfort of his bed and rings for coffee.

Fair enough, he didn’t technically need to have a lie in after a late night, but there was no sense being the only one up, was there? And if there was one thing the French had mastered it was pillows- you could drown in one of those things.

One of the nameless fleet of palace servants brings coffee, scalding hot the way he likes, starts the fire in the grate, and lays out his clothes and shoes while Crowley dictates no, not that one, the other one from the divan.

Another thing he didn’t, technically, need but what was even the point of living in the palace if you didn’t have servants to tend to your every wish?   
  
Finally, the boy is allowed to scamper off, and so Crowley is lounging back in a robe with his coffee, contemplating ringing for a chocolate biscuit, when the crackle of the fire in the grate takes on a decidedly vocal tone.

“Crowley…”

He freezes. Shit, shit, head office never got in touch again this soon. What is he playing at? “Er… yes?”

“The obstacle has been neutralized. You may continue unimpeded with your orders to corrupt the boy king.”

And he had very nearly forgotten the conversation with Asmodeus two days prior. Wasn’t that funny? How he had given it so very little thought that it actually takes him a moment to parse out what that meant. 

“Neutralized- what do you- what obstacle?” He spills his coffee, unnoticed, dropping down on hands and knees on the rug to peer into the fireplace.

Sounding for all the world like a beleaguered parent speaking to a rather dim child, Asmodeus’ voice drawls from the fire, “The angel, Crowley. I’ve taken care of it for you.”

And that- 

“Oh.”

There’s a moment before it quite hits him, like that last breath before you hit the water. 

He clings to that moment. If he doesn’t understand, if he doesn’t see, then he won’t-

“Report when you’ve completed your task.”

The fire begins to die.

“No, no, no- wait- wait!”

In a rush of heat the fire collapses completely, taking the voice with it, and leaving him on his knees on the floor, alone.

“Wait,” he says one last time, unheard, into the cooling grate.

Taken care of.

Well, that… that could mean anything, couldn’t it?

Couldn’t it?

The room settles into darkness.

“ _Merde_.”   
  


* * *

  
He doesn’t bother waiting for a carriage to be made ready.   
  
A snap of his fingers and there is a horse saddled and waiting outside when he reaches the rotunda, a smug-looking Frisian, and Crowley grabs the thing by the bridle, pulling its massive head down until they are eye to eye.  
  
“Alright, you,” he says, locking eyes with the horse over the rim of his glasses, “Here’s how this is going to work.”  
  
Crowley produces his watch from his pocket and holds it up. Tension is building in the hinge of his jaw. A bit of a hiss slips through his teeth – he normally worked so hard to control it, that stupid hiss, just because you really were a great ugly serpent underneath didn’t mean you had to go around sounding like one, but he’s got bigger things on his mind at the moment-  
  
The angel. We’ve taken care of it.  
  
“You’ve got fifteen minutes to get me to Montparnassse. Not twenty, not sixteen. Fifteen minutess. One second longer, and… “ he leans in close to the horse’s ear and whispers. And whispers.   
  
The Frisian lets out a startled whinny.  
  
“Got it?”   
  
Another frightened noise.  
  
“Good.”  
  
Taking the reins from a groom he climbs onto the animal’s back. With a snarl that belonged- quite literally- in the depths of hell, he spurs the horse to bolting, and they’re off.

  
  
To understand Crowley’s panic, there are three important things you need to know:  
  
The first is that demons are not naturally inclined to be subservient. It was part of the whole reason they became demons in the first place, better to reign in Hell, etc. Demons had a built in structural resistance to bending at the knee.  
  
The second important thing is that titles in Hell are not given. They’re earned. Generally, they’re earned by consensus among other demons.  
  
And the third is that Prince of Hell is the greatest title a demon can attain, second only to Lucifer himself.  
  
With these things in mind, try to imagine what Asmodeus, Prince of Hell might mean when he says that an angel has been ‘taken care of’.   
  
And now, like Crowley, try very hard to stop imagining it.   
  


  
  
Fourteen minutes, thirty-eight seconds, and three traumatized pedestrians later, Crowley dismounts in the stone courtyard outside Aziraphale’s hotel particulier.   
  
“Stay-“ he snarls at the horse, which retreats to gratefully lap water out of the ornamental fountain.  
  
In three long-legged strides he crosses the courtyard and pounds on the heavy wooden doors.   
  
“Come on, come on, come on,” Crowley mutters to himself, shifting from foot to foot and keeping up a steady, incessant beat on the door. “Know somebody’s in there, great big house like this, ssomeone has to be here, come on! Fuck!” he kicks the door.  
  
We’ve taken care of him.  
  
No. Can’t be. Can’t be. He does the mental equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and humming loudly. Can’t be, I won’t let you be-  
  
“Aziraphale!” He pounds on the door again, crushing down the panic that’s threatening to rise up and choke him.  
  
There had to be somebody home- a maid, valet, servants, someone. He knew Aziraphale kept a staff. House like this, he had to. It’d be unseemly if he didn’t.   
  
And Aziraphale didn’t normally like to have servants, but, well, he’d absolutely fallen in love with the house the first time they’d walked by it, years ago. Gushed his little heart out over all the cream stone, the windows, the garden out back. Look at that craftsmanship, he’d said, oh, isn’t it beautiful?   
  
The house had belonged to someone else back then, of course.   
  
“Aziraphale!”  
  
Places like this didn’t normally go up for sale but wouldn’t you know it, the owner just happened to fall on hard times not long after they walked by. Gambling debts, a few bad investments, could have happened to anyone.  
  
… He’s fairly sure Aziraphale knows, but the angel’s never said anything about it. He’d bought the house up eagerly enough, anyway.   
  
Heat pricks behind his eyes and Crowley scrubs at them with his sleeve, cursing.   
  
Right, fine. Aziraphale will be furious at him, if he’s still- _no, no you stop that_ \- but desperate times and all.   
  
A snap of his fingers and latch slides open.   
  
He opens the door.  
  
Crowley has a better sense of smell than a human, or even an angel. That’s why he notices it.   
  
It was just one of those things, like his eyes, like the scales on his elbows and the soles of his feet, a little bit of his true form he could never cover up.   
  
His nose wrinkles, lips curling as he steps over the threshold. It wasn’t strong, not down here, but- it was there. Something foul and putrid-sweet. He can taste it, coating the roof of his mouth, the back of his tongue.   
  
The place stank of death.   
  
Crowley tastes the air and fights the urge to gag.   
  
Whatever it was, it was upstairs.  
  
He follows it, his footsteps on the marble floor the only sound in the conspicuously empty house.   
  
At the closed door to the dining room he stops, pressing his sleeve over his nose and mouth, but this was vile, even a human would be able to smell this, and he’s never going to be able to wear these clothes again-  
  
Crowley very, very deliberately does not think of what could be causing the smell. He’s seen plenty of dead humans over the years, but he’s never seen what’s left over after someone’s discorporated. Oh, he knows it’s happened to Aziraphale, it’s happened to him too a couple of times- you end up in the wrong place at the wrong time and suddenly everyone’s cutting each other’s heads off- but he’s never been around to see if there’s anything left… afterwards.   
  
It stood to reason that there would be, didn’t it? Their vessels were flesh and blood and bone- cut from the same cloth, as it were, as a human body.   
  
Would it all be left behind after… after?  
  
Inside the dining room is thick with flies. They mass on the rotten remains of a meal still set on the table. Crowd around him, and Crowley waves them away with the arm that isn’t still covering his mouth. But that isn’t what’s causing the smell, not this-  
  
On the far side of the table he finds the body.   
  
It isn’t Aziraphale.   
  
The sudden relief that washes over him is so strong it makes his knees weak.  
  
_It isn’t him. It isn’t him, it isn’t-_  
  
It is – was- a girl. He nudges gently at the body with the toe of his boot, dislodging a cloud of flies. She was young, although it’s hard to tell through the bugs and the blood. A maid’s uniform. One of Aziraphale’s? Yes- he does seem to remember a maidservant with that same curly brunette hair letting him in once or twice.  
  
She’d looked different when Crowley saw her. Her throat hadn’t been ripped out, for one.  
  
He closes the door behind him when he leaves the room, shutting the worst of the smell in.   
  
A search of the rest of the house proves it to be empty, although Crowley could have guessed that from the corpse in the dining room. Aziraphale would never have left the poor girl there like that. But he isn’t writing a fucking book on all the places Aziraphale isn’t-  
  
Taken care of, he’s been taken care of-

“ _Fuck_!” On his second, fruitless pass through the study Crowley sweeps an arm out, sending a stack of books and papers to the floor with a satisfying ruckus. The elegant carved desk chair follows it, shattered to kindling against the wall. “Think think think- come on-“ He paces.  
  
You’re Asmodeus, Prince of Hell, how do you take care of an angel? Where do you take one? He hadn’t discorporated him here – there’d be a body. That just left… literally  
anywhere else.   
  
Crowley snarls and kicks the desk, which sends both a flurry of papers shuffling to the floor and a satisfying ache radiating through his shin. He’d just had to go and open his fat fucking mouth, hadn’t he? Had to get cocky, couldn’t just-  
  
Wait. One of the papers dislodged from the desk catches his eye. Heavy cream paper and ink so dark red it is nearly black. He plucks it off the floor.  
  
Mssr and Mme. de Montalia request the pleasure…  
  
He knew that name. Why did he know that name?  
  
Realization rises like the first dawn- cold and unmerciful in its truth.  
  
Oh.   
  
Oh no, not them. Anything but that lot.  
  
Crowley swears. He’s good at swearing. Comes with the territory.  
  
“…bastard goat-fucking _cultists_.”  
  


* * *

Aziraphale comes to slowly.  
  
He doesn’t normally make a habit of being unconscious, and his mind struggles, fluttering like a trapped bird against the heavy poison weighting it down. Halfway between wakefulness and drugged slumber, he dreams of drowning and wakes gasping.   
  
Sense trickles back in.

His mouth is dry. Sticky.  
  
The warmth of a nearby fire.  
  
Someone is singing nearby. A woman’s reedy alto. Simple, like a hymn.  
  
He is seated. Held in place, but-  
  
When he tries to move his arms, sudden pain- an awful sticking, tearing sensation- radiates through his body, sends him gasping, as his flesh clings to the iron chains binding him. The metal bites into the new soft skin he has unthinkingly offered it, burning as if red hot. He is afraid- for a fleeting moment- that he will be sick from the pain.   
  
“The chains were forged with hellfire,” Mme. de Montalia’s voice offers, syrup sweet. She swims into his vision, seated in the sensible parlour chair opposite him. “The only binding on earth that will hold an angel. Our master is generous.”

 _Oh damn, damn, damn-_  
  
It is not, considering the circumstances, the most tactful thought, but a large portion of Aziraphale’s conscious mind is still dedicating itself to keep him from whimpering in an undignified fashion. 

“Don’t worry, monsieur Aziraphale, the chains won’t be permanent.”

“Oh, good,” he manages, through the pain.  
  
“The master says we can kill you as early as next week. Once his servant has finished his work.”   
  
“Ah.”  
  
As his eyes adjust to the dim light, Aziraphale casts a glance around the unfamiliar parlour. Any efforts to insist that this is all a dreadful misunderstanding die on his tongue. 

“I take it you and your husband are not apostates of Saint Peter?” he bites out. Mme. de Montalia follows his eyes to the garishly large inverted cross carved inelegantly above the mantelpiece.

“Well spotted, monsieur Aziraphale,” she says sweetly.

 _Satanists. They’re just… eugh,_ he recalls Crowley saying once, over drinks. He’d given a theatrical, full-body shudder. _That’s humanity at its worst for you. Demons can’t come up with half the shit they do. We’re not creative enough. But tell a bunch of humans they’ll get brownie points in hell the more awful they are and suddenly it’s a race to see who can flay the most babies._

  
Oh God- he realizes with a sudden lurch- Crowley. Had hell found him out? Was that what this was about?  
  
He’s distracted from that sudden wave of fear when Mme. de Montalia draws herself up and runs the back of her hand up his bound arm. He’d been stripped down to his trousers and stockings, to better wrap the chains around his arms, he presumes, and her fingers are unnervingly warm against his bare skin. 

“And how our master has spoiled us.” A glint of white teeth in her painted red mouth. She lays her too-warm hand against his bare neck, and it takes every bit of his meager self-control not to recoil. “Our very own angel.”  
  
Angels are neither predators nor prey. Aziraphale knows that he was created whole-cloth by the hand of the Almighty herself, a complete being from the moment he began, utterly apart from the cycle that governs life on Earth. But oh… for just a moment he thinks he understands, deep in his bones, why a hare freezes when it sees a wolf. 

“Where _is_ your husband?” his voice comes out a note higher than Aziraphale would have liked.  
  
“He’ll be along. It’s just you and I for right now.”   
  
To his surprise, she kneels on the floor before him and closes her eyes sweetly, hands pressed together as if in prayer.  
  
“Listen… “ he licks his too dry lips. “You- you know you don’t have to…”  
  
“Have you ever taken communion, monsieur Aziraphale?” she interrupts his stammering. A glint of silver and a palm-sized knife appears in her hand. Before he can answer, she continues, “I did, when I was a little girl. It always seemed a little morbid. Consuming the blood and body of Christ. Does it actually do anything? I’ve always wondered.”

“I- I don’t know.”

She cocks her head at that, surprised. The point of the knife hovers, a hair’s breadth away from the meat of his arm. “Aren’t you an angel?”

“They don’t consult me on… on those sorts of things.”  
  
She hums, thoughtful. “Well then we must find out.” She begins to cut.

And Aziraphale begins to scream.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt from the Good Omens Kinkmeme: https://onthedisc.dreamwidth.org/9084.html?thread=128636
> 
> All the creepy bits will be in part 2, and... If you've read my other stuff you know I don't use the word lightly.


End file.
